Dunedin

NZ Nature on screen

To celebrate NZ’s unique natural taonga, Peter Hayden has curated a highlights collection from three decades of NHNZ productions. Aotearoa’s landforms and its magnificent menagerie of natural oddities – birds, insects, trees like nowhere else on the planet – are showcased in 15 award-winning titles. From Discovery Channel and David Bellamy, to Wild South and Our World classics.

The country’s newest public reserve has opened on the Catlins coast, to provide a safe haven for the endangered Yellow-eyed penguin.

The Department of Conservation has teamed up with a community trust to create a long strip of protected coastline, about two hours south of Dunedin.
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This remote area on the Catlins coast is one of the main habitats of the Yellow-eyed penguin.

And now DOC – together with the Yellow-eyed Penguin Trust – have bought 50 hectares of coastal farmland, effectively creating a 12 kilometre reserve along the Southern Ocean.

New Conservation Minister Steve Chadwick planted a Rata tree to celebrate the occasion.

It is expected to be the first of many planted here as part of a reforestation project, to help the penguins feel more at home.

“Until we put vegetation around these sorts of coastal margins that encourages them to come in and breed, we’re at peril of losing more and more of them,” Chadwick says.

This 12 kilometre stretch of coastline is home to around 50 breeding pairs, that’s 10percent of the Yellow-eyed penguin population in the South Island.

The penguins have coped relatively well in the isolated area, but plans to add fences and undertake predator control work will help improve their chances or survival.

Sea birds could also be reintroduced into the country’s newest public reserve, which DOC describes as a good investment for generations of New Zealanders.

Vodafone and Run The Red are excited to announce Donatelive! a new service which is the first of its kind in New Zealand. The service enables customers with Vodafone live! capable handsets to donate to the Yellow-eyed Penguin Trust.

Users can donate $3, $5 or $9 and in return will receive multimedia content downloaded directly to their phone. Content includes Yellow-eyed penguin ringtones, screensavers and videos. Vodafone will pass on 100% of the donation to the charity.

Customers can also see information on Vodafone live! about the Yellow-eyed Penguin Trust and the work they are doing to save one of our national treasures.

This new initiative is launching to the public on October 11 in conjunction with the Yellow-eyed Penguin Trust’s 20th Anniversary. The service has been created by the 2007 Graduates as part of the Vodafone Graduate Programme and will be available for an initial three month period. full press release